Stewed Ox Tail
Two ox tails cut in pieces three inches in length; to it add three tablespoonfuls of butter, one large onion, half carrot, three slices of turnip, two stalks of celery, two cloves, pint and a half of stock, salt and pepper to suit the taste; cut the vegetables in small pieces, heat the butter, then add the vegetables, and when it begins to brown, add little flour and stir three minutes. Put in the tails, adding the seasoning and stock. Simmer gently three hours, serve on hot dish, and pour strained gravy over them.
A straightforward brown braise that needs only a few clarifications for a modern cook, plus one adjustment of expectation about the meat itself.
- Buying the tailsTwo whole oxtails run roughly 4 to 6 lb and will feed four to six. Butchers now sell them already cut at the joints, which is what you want; the joints are where they separate cleanly, and "three inches" is roughly one or two segments depending on where along the tail they come from. Thick top-end pieces and thin tip pieces cook at different rates, so keep them together in the pot and pull the small ones out first if they collapse.
- Brown the meat, not just the vegetablesThe recipe browns the mirepoix and flour, then adds the tails raw. Searing the tails hard in the butter first, removing them, then cooking the vegetables in the same fat gives a far deeper gravy. Oxtail is fatty enough that you may not need all three tablespoons of butter.
- A pint and a half of stockThree cups in US measure. That is on the low side for two whole tails; add enough to come about two-thirds up the meat and top up with water or more stock if it reduces below that during the long simmer.
- Three hours is a minimumOxtail is heavy in collagen and needs to go well past "done" into falling-apart. Three hours at a bare simmer may work for small pieces; three and a half to four is more usual, and the test is whether the meat slips off the bone under a fork, not the clock. A 300F oven with the lid on holds a steadier temperature than a burner.
- "Little flour"About two tablespoons, stirred into the buttered vegetables and cooked the stated three minutes to lose the raw taste. This is a light thickening only; the gelatin from the tails does most of the work and the gravy will body up considerably as it cools.
- Skim the fatThe original says nothing about it, but oxtail releases a great deal of fat. Cooking the dish a day ahead and lifting the set fat off the chilled surface is the cleanest method, and the stew is better for the rest.
- ServingWhole cloves should be fished out or the gravy strained as directed. Mashed potato, boiled rice or bread all suit the dish, being there to take the gravy.
Oxtail was for a long time an offcut in the true sense: the tail came off at the slaughterhouse and was sold cheaply, often to tripe dressers and to households that could not afford joints. Its reputation rests on long-simmered soups and stews -- oxtail soup in Britain is generally traced to eighteenth-century London -- in which the very thing that made the cut awkward, its ratio of connective tissue and bone to lean meat, produced a gravy of unusual body. This version, with its butter-browned mirepoix, flour thickening and strained sauce, is a domesticated ragout in the French manner, an economical but not humble dish. The economics have since reversed; oxtail is now among the more expensive things at the butcher's counter, while the cuisines that never abandoned it -- Jamaican, Korean, Chinese, Italian -- kept demand alive as the rest of the market forgot it.